


Life's Too Short To Take It As It Goes

by LayALioness



Series: Is This Your Starring Role (or just your cameo?) [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Minor Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 13:39:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10720422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: Raven posts a selfie of her and Caity Lotz to Instagram, captioned “Supermarket meet cute. Must be fate!” It’s a really cute picture, and she’s proud of it.And if she happens to know that Luna follows her on Instagram, and is hoping she’ll see it along with Caity’s corresponding picture and response--a series of kissy and heart emojis--and get a little jealous, well, it’s not like anyone can prove it.Jazzman sent a photoJazzman: AOIAJIOIJOFIOAOPAJAIOJFOIAJGreen Bean: otp goals :sparkle emoji:Jazzman changed the group name to “Craven Rise”Raisin changed the group name to “Don’t ship rpf”Jazzman changed the group name to “Stop Kink Shaming Me”Green Bean changed the group name to “KinkShamingISMyKink”Jazzman changed the group name to “aAAAHAAAHHHHHHHH”By the time Raven thinks to check her profile again, she sees that Luna has liked the photo.OceanEyes: Very lovelyIt’s just two words, bare minimum really, but it still sets Raven’s heart racing.





	Life's Too Short To Take It As It Goes

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely based on that tweet where Caity Lotz and Lindsey Morgan said they ship themselves, and collectively made wlw everywhere die. 
> 
> I will probably add more to this universe in the future, just fyi.
> 
> Title from One of Us by New Politics.

Raven is curating songs for a new playlist (for Clarke, titled Ring That Bell-amy because subtlety isn’t Clarke’s strong suit) when her phone beeps. It’s a message from the groupchat she has going with Monty and Jasper, ostensibly so they can mull over the ridiculousness that is Bellamy and Clarke in private, but which has started to devolve into a pointless stream of consciousness wherein they chat about whatever topics nab their attention. Last she checked, they were in the midst of a debate over which jellyfish was The Hot Girl of the reef.

She sees the notification was from Jasper, who’s just sent a screenshot of twitter. A fan made a tweet, saying that she “ships” Raven and Caity Lotz from _Legends of Tomorrow_. Caity has replied “Me too” with a kissy emoji.

It makes Raven grin, so she retweets it too and adds “Mutual.”

Raven loves her fans in a way she’s not sure her costars really _get_ , not completely. She doesn’t have any naive misconceptions about them being friends; they are, for the most part, thousands of strangers on the internet. They don’t _know_ her, and it does admittedly freak her out sometimes, when they act like they do.

But her fans were the ones who rallied to get her onto _Wayne Manor_ in the first place, launching her from her hybrid science/work-out Youtube channel, to a starring role on a major network, playing one of the most famous female superheroes of all time. Raven had played bit parts on sitcoms and soaps before, intermittently and just for fun, but suddenly this was her _life_ , and she had a bunch of teenage girls to thank for it, and sometimes she can’t breathe with how much she loves them.

Raven isn’t like Bellamy or Clarke or Miller. She didn’t set out to act, isn’t looking to turn it into a life-long career. She isn’t convinced she’ll still be acting in five or ten years, and she isn’t sure she wants to. Acting was never her _dream_ , because Raven’s dreams were never that simple. There’s an entire world she hasn’t scraped her knees on yet, and she wants to touch everything, leaving her fingerprints on every inch.

But for now, she loves her life, loves what she’s doing and who she’s doing it with. She wouldn’t call herself _satisfied_ , but she doesn’t know if she ever will be. Raven doesn’t know how to do that, how to be sure she’s feeling something that she’s never felt before. She’s a mechanic, not a theoretical physicist. She likes to focus on things that she can define.

Jazzman: if u get to bang canary then i call dibs on iris west

Green Bean: in your dreams

Jazzman: ya

Jazzman: p frequently

Raisin: Can’t talk right now, having a threesome w Caity & Candice

Green Bean: hot :high five emoji:

Jazzman: pix or it didnt happen reyes!!!!!!!!!!

_Green Bean changed the group name to “Ot3: Cravendice”_

Raven glances up at the sound of the trailer door opening, and Luna smiles back at her, cup carrier in hand. She hands over a latte, cinnamon dulce with skim milk, sixteen ounces of happiness, and Raven takes a sip.

It’s perfect, as usual, though Raven has no idea where Luna gets her coffee. Luna knows all the no-name, hole-in-the-wall cafes and stores throughout the city, and sometimes Raven fantasizes about letting Luna show her around, pointing out all the eccentric book stores and art galleries that she would otherwise miss. But Raven still hasn’t figured out how to spend time with Luna outside of work, so this is what she’s confined to; spending every minute she can spare in the dressing trailer, surrounded by costumes on clothing racks and spare bits of material flung over each surface, trying not to seem like she’s not waiting around for Luna Waters when she so clearly is.

It’s been years since Raven has had a crush, not since Finn Collins, and it’s frustrating. Sometimes she gets so caught up in Luna--the way she always smells like she just came from the beach, or how some days she wears colorful ribbons in her hair, or the curve of her lips when she smiles--that Raven can’t _speak_ , she likes her so much. Sometimes she doesn’t know what to do with her hands, and doesn’t notice that she’s shredded a script until suddenly it’s a mess of scraps and she has to go ask for a new one.

But it’s kind of nice too, in a weird way. She likes having something to focus on, other than how much her hip starts to hurt after just a few hours, other than the pity in the journalists’ eyes when they inevitably ask about the accident, other than the fact that most of her other coworkers are caught up in their own nets of romance.

Luna is--distracting. And for once, Raven is glad to be distracted.

“Any fittings today?” Luna asks, and Raven snorts. It’s a joke, sort of. Raven is grateful that the writers were so understanding of her _condition_ , so quick to write her into the Oracle role, but it also meant a lot of changes that went beyond the writing.

Gone are the days of Raven doing her own stunts, happily sweating the hours away in training gyms until she got a move _just right_ , the rush of adrenaline and pride that came with it. Gone are the days of Barbara Gordon’s sex appeal, and while Raven isn’t necessarily disappointed about no longer having to force herself through awkward sex scenes with men like Kyle Wick, she hates that it comes at the cost of her ego. No one wants to imagine themselves fucking her in a wheelchair.

And gone are the days of her Batgirl costume, fitted and stylish, making her feel powerful and _hot_ in all the best ways. She liked how confidant the bat-suit made her feel. Like she was a real superhero, ready to kick ass and save the world.

“If you had to design a suit for the Oracle, what color would it be?” Raven asks idly.

Luna doesn’t even hesitate, and Raven’s a little surprised by the speed of her response. “Red.” When Raven looks up at her, she adds “It’s your best color.”

Suddenly aware that she’s wearing a bright crimson tank top, old and baggy over her chest, Raven flushes. “Sounds like you’ve given it some thought,” she teases, trying not to fidget.

“I have.”

Wordlessly, Luna roots through the beaded satchel she carries around, withdrawing a sketchbook and flipping through the pages before she slides it into Raven’s lap.

It’s a costume design. For _her_ , or rather, the Oracle. The suit itself is less focused on aesthetic and more on practicality, on how it would fit around her bad leg and limit her agility. It’s beautiful, and red, the same shade of red as her favorite jacket. Luna’s scrawled a few notes, regarding different materials and angles, handwriting intricate and beautiful but difficult to read. The designs themselves aren’t sketched, but painted, and the style is barely structured. Like she just spilled the paint and it dried where it landed.

“I did that the week after your accident,” Luna admits, and Raven finally tears her eyes from the page.

“You didn’t even know if I’d be back yet.”

“No,” she agrees. “But I hoped. I showed it to the writers, after they announced that you would be, but they thought the Oracle’s apparel should be less--extravagant.”

“They’re idiots,” Raven says, and Luna smiles. Luna doesn’t smile often, not with the rest of the crew. Raven likes to think she smiles the most around her. She knows it’s a selfish thought, but--she’s allowed selfish thoughts, from time to time.

She tries and fails not to think about what this single page in a sketchbook means, what it insinuates. That in those first weeks--those first _months,_ really, when everyone else was tiptoeing around Raven and treating her like glass, making her go crazy with their sympathy, Luna was designing her a super-suit.

Riley chooses that moment to appear, his own costume in hand, with a visible tear in the seam of the crotch that Raven is morbidly curious about. He looks like he just saw a steamroller run over a bunch of puppies.

“Heyyyyy,” he starts, “Sorry for interrupting, but--” he holds his ruined suit up for emphasis, and Luna gives him a look of dismay. This is the third time she’s had to repair one of his outfits, and she’s clearly not happy about it. Luna can be intimidating when she wants to be.

“It’s cool, I have to shoot soon anyway.” Raven hands the sketchbook back to Luna before she can do anything stupid, like beg to keep the stupid picture so she can frame it and hang it on her wall and stare at it for hours.

Bellamy’s already on set when she arrives, tossing her a smirk like he isn’t the biggest human disaster when it comes to his own love life. “Nice of you to grace us with your presence.”

She makes a face at him, settling into Barbara’s wheelchair. “Are you ready to admit how much you wanna marry Clarke and have her babies yet?”

Bellamy rolls his eyes. “Wouldn’t she be the one having babies?”

“When it comes to babies, I don’t put anything past you.”

Sinclair whistles the chorus from “Goodbye Stranger” by Supertramp, which is his preferred method of getting their attention. “If you’re all ready,” he says, looking a little stern but mostly amused. Sinclair still directs a handful of _Wayne Manor_ episodes every season, but _Nightwing_ is his baby.

Bellamy gives Raven another smirk, just to be an asshole, and she flips him off. “Ready if you are.”

In all honesty, Bellamy will always be Raven’s favorite co star, if only because he was the first one to stop acting like she might break if he so much as raised his voice around her.

She will never, ever tell him that. Mocking him is way more fun.

“After you, Bat Junior.” He throws a cardboard batarang at her face.

 

The first time Raven spent the night with Clarke was after she broke up with Finn Collins, her boyfriend of five years. She was seventeen, had been twelve when they started dating, and she didn’t really think about it, before she found herself biking through Beverly Hills, and ending up on Clarke’s doorstep.

They’d exchanged numbers on the set of _Girl Matters_ , and Clarke’s mom was the one to open the door.

Raven has been familiar with Abby Griffin’s face and voice since she was just a kid. Her mom used to plop them both down on the ratty floral sofa with a bowl of caramel popcorn in between them, mouths and fingers sticky as they watched old slasher reruns on TV. The version of Abby that Raven knew was much younger than the one standing before her, but it was clearly her, and Raven was a little starstruck. Raven had grown up in LA, and was used to seeing celebrities--hell, _Finn_ was technically a celebrity--but they were never _Abby Griffin_ , the queen of silver-screened horror.

Then suddenly Clarke was there, tugging her inside and up to her fucking _enormous_ bedroom, where they sat on her fucking _enormous_ bed and gorged themselves on chocolate-covered fruit and talked about nothing.

They weren’t _friends_ , not really, not yet, but Raven had never really had friends. There was just Finn, and now she didn’t know how to be around Finn for the first time in her life, and so this was what she had left: falling asleep next to the girl her boyfriend cheated with, chocolate still on their breath in the morning.

“What, you two are _friends_ now?” Finn asked, sounding a little scandalized, sounding like he wanted to tell her that that wasn’t possible.

But he really should have known better; Raven Reyes lived her life, doing what other people said was impossible.

They said she couldn’t date the actor that used to live next door to her, and she did. They said she couldn’t go to college, the daughter of a hooker with a drinking problem from the bad side of downtown, and she did. They said she couldn’t make a living from filming herself blowing shit up and putting it on the internet, and she did. They said she couldn’t get the role on _Wayne Manor_ , and she did. They said she couldn’t keep acting with a bum leg, and she did that too.

Raven is a lesson in spite as motivation.

So, even though she didn’t know if it was true, she said “Yeah, we _are_ friends, deal with it.”

Fast forward nearly a decade later, and now when Clarke calls her over a breakup, Raven knows it’s true.

Clarke also has her own apartment, and Raven has her own car, which makes it a lot easier to show up at her doorstep, two pints of rocky road in hand.

They watch the _Fast and the Furious_ movies because they need some mindless car chase scenes, and get drunk on some everclear that Raven stole from Murphy’s stash, because he is decidedly her least favorite coworker and she’s pretty sure he won’t even notice it’s missing.

They don’t talk about Lexa, because that’s one of the rules. They don’t talk about the ex, they don’t talk about the breakup, and they don’t talk about boys.

Almost like she’s reading her mind, Clarke says “So Bellamy says you’re spending a lot of time with Luna.”

Raven is tipsy but definitely not drunk enough for this conversation, so she says “No boys!”

“Luna isn’t a boy.”

“You mentioned _Bellamy_ ,” Raven says pointedly, and Clarke looks down at her half-empty pint. It’s not like Raven thinks she and Lexa broke up because of Bellamy--she’s witnessed enough of Clarke’s relationships to know that it’s bigger than that--but he was a factor, and Clarke can’t deny that. For an actress, she has a pretty shitty poker face.

What it comes down to is this: when given the option between Bellamy and anyone else, Clarke will pick Bellamy. And there really isn’t any coming back from that.

Raven wishes they would just do her and literally everyone else a favor and _get together_ , but she knows they’re too dramatic for that. _Actors_. There’s no living with them.

“Okay, no boys. But _Luna_ ,” Clarke waggles her eyebrows suggestively, and Raven contemplates flicking a spoonful of ice cream at her face. It would be a waste of some really good ice cream, but it might also be worth it. Clarke has the best reactions to shit like that, freezing and gaping her mouth like a flounder.

“You don’t even _know_ Luna,” Raven rolls her eyes. Unlike a lot of the cast and crew, Luna doesn’t work on both _Wayne Manor_ and _Nightwing_. Clarke’s probably met her at wrap parties and the like, but they’ve certainly never spoken much.

“So tell me about her,” Clarke says, pragmatic, and Raven may not be gone enough to talk about how sometimes she dreams about kissing the spot where Luna’s neck meets her jaw, but she might be gone enough to talk about her in general.

More often than not these days, it’s harder to _not_ talk about Luna, with anyone.

“She’s--distracting,” Raven says, and in her mind it’s a compliment, but Clarke just looks confused. She doesn’t understand how focused Raven gets, completely one-track-minded, tunnel vision blocking out the rest of the world until she’s finished whatever she’s doing and can move onto her next conquest. Usually nothing can break that focus--except Luna.

“She’s so talented,” Raven adds, trying to find the right words so that Clarke might understand, might see Luna the way Raven does. “You know she was born rich? Her mom was a supermodel, and she had Luna modeling from when she could walk, basically. She did stuff for Vogue, and all the other big names, but she decided to become a designer instead. Not even for runways, but for _TV_ , just because she wanted to branch out on her own.”

It’s what made Raven like her, more than the way her eyes laughed when Raven imitated Jasper, more than the way her hair caught the sun sometimes and looked like fire, it was the fact that when the world had been held out to Luna on a silver platter, she’d turned and carved out her own road instead. It was the fact that Luna worked for everything that she had, even when her family and her family’s friends all said she couldn’t do it, and Raven thought _she’s like me._

“That’s really cool,” Clarke says, dutifully impressed. She doesn’t get it, but she’s happy for Raven, and that’s good enough.

Raven sighs. “Yeah.” She sets aside her ice cream. It’s gonna melt into a puddle by the morning, but she doesn’t really care. She lays back on the carpet while Vin Diesel drives some poor schmuck off the road.

Raven doesn’t talk about the first day she saw-- _really_ saw Luna Waters. It was the first day that Raven came back to work after her accident, after months of physical therapy and people asking _are you sure?_ and her gritting her teeth and clawing her way back to the set because she sure as hell wasn’t going to let something like a busted spine stop her.

But it was so fucking _hard_ , and it _hurt_ , even after six months and a healthy dose of painkillers, and she kept needing to take breaks every twenty minutes which only frustrated her even more.

Raven ducked into the first private space she could find--the costume trailer--leaned her head back against the wall, and started to cry.

She didn’t notice the door open, but then suddenly Luna was there, clearing her throat noticeably, and Raven startled. She didn’t know Luna well, for all that they’d worked together for a few seasons. Like most of the crew, they were friendly, but not _friends_ , and Raven was embarrassed, wiping at her eyes and ruined makeup, tugging at her messy hair, feeling like a child.

But Luna didn’t ask her what was wrong, or why she was crying. She didn’t even look very sympathetic. She just looked--understanding. Like she’d expected to find Raven having a break down in her trailer, and was prepared.

“Do you still have scenes to film?” she asked, and Raven shook her head.

“I wrapped thirty minutes ago.”

Luna nodded, and pulled a flask from the drawer of her desk. Raven balked a little, couldn’t help it. She didn’t know Luna, but she didn’t think Luna was the type of person to keep a drawer filled with liquor in her trailer.

“What is that?” Raven asked, taking a sniff when Luna handed it over.

“Vodka.”

Raven took a sip and only gagged a little. She’s more of a tequila person. “That shit’s rank.”

Luna smiled a little devilishly, and Raven eyed her, starting to think she’d misjudged the quiet-mannered costume designer. “Murphy is a spendthrift.”

“You’re friends with Murphy?” Raven made a face before taking another drink and then passing it back to her. Murphy was, objectively, an asshole. His weird, antagonistic friendship with Bellamy aside, Raven didn’t think he _had_ friends.

Luna shrugged, taking a long pull herself, not flinching at all from the taste. “We are similar.”

Raven didn’t see a single similarity besides maybe their penchant for really cheap, really bad alcohol, but she didn’t say that.

They passed the flask back and forth for a while, saying nothing, and it was--nice. Raven was drinking shitty vodka with an almost-stranger in a cramped trailer and it was the nicest hour she’d had in forever. Since before the accident, at the very least.

Eventually she had to leave, though. It was getting late, and she was hungry, and Luna probably had better things to do than babysit her. “Thanks for, you know,” she muttered. Luna capped the flask and put it away.

“My brother had cancer when I was younger. I got pretty good at spending time with people who didn’t want to be pitied.”

She said it so matter-of-fact, and Raven stared. Suddenly she wasn’t sure she knew Luna Waters at all. “Did he get better?”

“No.”

Raven wrung at the hem of her shirt with unsettled fingers. She didn’t know what to say, but she wasn’t going to ruin the moment by offering Luna sympathy when Luna had been kind enough not to. People die, and it’s awful, but condolences never help. “That sucks.”

Luna smiled, wry, just an uptick at the corners. “Yes, it does.” She didn’t offer to help Raven down the trailer steps outside, but she did keep a hand on her arm, like it was normal, the warmth of skin against skin making Raven’s chest burn.

The evening sky was beginning to turn violet, and Luna tipped her head back to stare up. “Purple sunset, thunder’s on deck,” she said, turning back to Raven with a smile. “It’s going to storm tonight.”

Raven was skeptical. “This is LA. I can’t remember the last time we had a thunderstorm. No offense to your medieval meteorology, or whatever.”

Luna seemed amused. “I guess we’ll see. Goodnight, Raven.”

Raven didn’t ask her not to mention their time together, but Luna never did, and so Raven didn’t either.

She also didn’t mention going home that night and googling _Luna Waters_ , because Raven googles people. She doesn’t like not knowing things, especially not knowing things about people, and so yeah, maybe she cyber-stalks a little. She’s accepted this about herself, plus it’s all technically public information, so whatever.

She reads the wikipedia article about her modelling career, and then looks up the photos. She’d known Luna was gorgeous, all wild curls and big brown eyes and perfect skin, but she’d never seen Luna like _that_. Ethereal.

She was still scrolling when the rain started to fall, making her grin up at the ceiling for no reason.

She went back to Luna’s trailer the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Raven doesn’t tell Clarke about what that day meant to her, about how it made her feel. Like she’d been _noticed_ for the first time, without trying to be. Clarke wouldn’t really get it anyway, because Clarke doesn’t know what it means to not be noticed. Raven has always had to work at what she got, making herself the best at it, making herself irreplaceable, impossible to ignore, grabbing at the audience with both hands and saying _look at me look at me look at me_.

She hadn’t tried with Luna, because she hadn’t thought to try, and Luna had seen her anyway, and that was everything.

Raven falls asleep thinking about Luna’s face when she forecasted rain. Brimming with excitement. She has a weird dream about them as car thieves on the run. She blames Vin Diesel.

 

Raven is in line to buy tampons, which is objectively the worst thing to be caught buying in a supermarket, except maybe condoms or a birth control test, when she runs into Caity Lotz.

It’s a total coincidence, but they’ve met a couple of times before at cons and such, know each other in the sense that they’re both members of the collective DC family. They chat for a little bit--Caity is buying some avocados, bananas, free-range bacon and a gallon of almond milk, which only makes Raven feel more embarrassed about her own purchases (tampons and a bag of snickers)--and take some selfies, because why not?

Raven posts hers to Instagram, captioned “Supermarket meet cute. Must be fate!” It’s a really cute picture, and she’s proud of it.

And if she happens to know that Luna follows her on Instagram, and is hoping she’ll see it along with Caity’s corresponding picture and response--a series of kissy and heart emojis--and get a little jealous, well, it’s not like anyone can prove it.

_Jazzman sent a photo_

Jazzman: AOIAJIOIJOFIOAOPAJAIOJFOIAJ

Green Bean: otp goals :sparkle emoji:

_Jazzman changed the group name to “Craven Rise”_

_Raisin changed the group name to “Don’t ship rpf”_

_Jazzman changed the group name to “Stop Kink Shaming Me”_

_Green Bean changed the group name to “KinkShamingISMyKink”_

_Jazzman changed the group name to “aAAAHAAAHHHHHHHH”_

By the time Raven thinks to check her profile again, she sees that Luna has liked the photo.

OceanEyes: Very lovely

It’s just two words, bare minimum really, but it still sets Raven’s heart racing.

Luna is in the costume trailer already by the time Raven gets there the next morning, and she smiles, same as always. “Do you and Caity have a wedding date yet?” she asks, teasing. Raven tries to find anything off, anything that might signal just a little envy, but she can’t.

She tries not to feel disappointed. “Nah. We’re planning to elope.”

 

It’s by complete accident that Raven bumps into Luna at a coffee shop, later that month. She needs an energy boost after another interview that inevitably turned into a “So are Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin secretly dating or what?” conversation. Raven loves her friends, and she loves talking about her friends, but sometimes she wants to talk about _herself_ once in awhile, especially when she’s literally supposed to be talking about herself. She doesn’t think that’s too much to ask for, but lately it seems like the only things people are interested in about her are her disability and her love life, which sucks.

It doesn't help that it's con season, which Raven loves and hates. Loves because it's when she gets to meet the most fans, gushing over their art and cosplays and just generally nerding out hardcore when she isn't busy being an actress. Hates because when she  _is_ busy being an actress, it's nothing but panels and interviews and answering the same three questions over and over while trying not to fall asleep. Plus it's flying back and forth from LA, here one weekend and gone the next, never getting over the jet lag before she's whisked away to a different time zone. Luna stays behind, with most of the crew, because unfortunately no one seems interested in questioning the costume designer. Which seems stupid, since Luna works really fucking hard on their costumes, and her creations are badass. Everyone should be interested in talking to her.

So yeah, Raven's not exactly in a great mood when she ducks into the first cafe she spots down the street, eyes scanning the room automatically. She takes in the indie-artsy vibe and chalkboard menu before her focus snags on a familiar head of curls at one of the tables.

Luna is sitting in a patch of sunlight, sipping from a cardboard cup and doodling in her sketchbook, feet bare and tucked up under her with a pair of beaded flip flops abandoned on the floor. Raven’s mouth goes dry.

She hasn’t seen her yet. Raven could just leave. Hell, she could probably even order her drink and then leave, without Luna ever looking up and glimpsing her.

But Raven Reyes has never been the kind of person who walks away from something she wants, and she isn’t about to start now. She places her order at the register, and then walks over, pulling out the opposite chair without a word.

Luna doesn’t jump, but her eyes do widen, the only sign she’s been startled. They soften almost immediately, and turn almost--warm? Raven feels it down in her toes.

“Raven,” Luna smiles. “I assume you’re here for caffeine?”

“Maybe I like the farmer’s market atmosphere,” Raven says, and Luna’s grin turns sly.

“You hate farmer’s markets,” she teases. “You think they’re pretentious.”

“Maybe I’m growing as a person,” Raven says, and she could really get used to this--sitting with Luna in a coffee shop, so close that their knees keep brushing together, making her smile, _teasing_. She’ll be totally fine, if this becomes their new normal.

Luna opens her mouth, but Raven’s phone cuts her off with a beep. Raven wonders if it’s a thing, getting cockblocked by a groupchat, or if she’s the lucky first.

Jazzman: u guys are coming to the party tn right???

Green Bean: jasper

Green Bean: i live with you

Green Bean: it’s my party too

Jazzman: right ofc my bad

Jazzman: raven?????

Raisin: Idk I might be busy.

Jazzman: busy w what :eyeballs emoji: or w who :eyeballs emoji:

Green Bean: raven we know all your friends

Green Bean: they’re all coming so don’t bother lying

Raisin: You don’t know ALL my friends.

Jazzman: :eyeballs emoji: who are ur secret friends :eyeballs emoji:

Raisin: Can I bring a plus one?

Green Bean: it’s a party you can bring whoever

Jazzman: except kylo

Green Bean: yeah except kylo

Raisin: You guys know you can just call him Kyle

Jazzman: but kylos more fun

Jazzman: don’t bring him

Jazzman: but anyone else is cool the more the merrier etc

_Jazzman has changed the group name to “RAISINS SECRET FRANDS”_

Raven rolls her eyes at her phone and glances back up to Luna, who’s gone back to working on her sketch across the table. “Hey, are you busy tonight?”

Luna considers, tapping her pen against her lip, which Raven tries not to stare at. “That depends on what you’re offering.”

“Wanna go to a wrap party at the Boys Wonder’s?”

Luna’s smile is enough to set Raven’s hands off again, fiddling with her phone case until it might break. “I’d love to.”

“Don’t expect much,” Raven warns her, suddenly nervous. _She_ loves her friends, they’re actually her favorite people, but, well, they’re sort of crazy. Like, really crazy. Set-themselves-on-fire-regularly crazy. “It’s just batfam and whoever the others bring. But we usually get really drunk and play board games and stuff. It can be fun.”

“It sounds nice,” Luna assures her. “I’m a beast at Monopoly.”

Raven snorts. “A beast, huh?”

Luna’s smile is fucking _predatory_. “Savage.”

Raven doesn’t hear them calling her name to pick up the coffee until Luna brushes her foot against her ankle, clearly trying not to laugh.

They agree to meet at the boys’, and Raven gives Luna the address before she heads home to change, and get a power nap in before she tries to binge drink her way through the night. For a bunch of almost thirty-year-olds they really do turn into a fucking frat on wrap night. Raven’s woken up on the roof completely dressed sans underwear before, and she _still_ has no idea what happened to it, which was a huge pain since it was her favorite pair.

Raven shows up early to help set up, along with most of batfam, since they’ve been doing this for years now and have it pretty much down to a science. Murphy, Monty and Jasper worry about the weed and alcohol. Bellamy takes care of the food. Clarke shows up with her crafty, obscure wine coolers that everyone else pretends are too fruity but then drink anyway. Jackson makes sure no one dies from alcohol poisoning. Miller makes sure nobody drives drunk, and Raven makes sure they all wake up with photographic proof of everything that transpired. She also brings her own tequila, because she refuses to drink the gas station kind. She has to draw the fucking line _somewhere_.

By the time Luna arrives, the sun has disappeared and the party is in full swing. Also Raven may be less than sober, because Octavia likes to challenge everyone to drinking contests even though she’s tiny and cannot handle her liquor, so now she’s draped over Lincoln in the corner, being petted. Raven is pouring another line of shots when she sees Luna walk in, and while Sober Raven may be a fan of playing it cool, Drunk Raven has no such reservations.

“Hey!” she beams, and Luna smiles back at her. She’s wearing a choker made out of seashells, and some beachy dress the color of the ocean, and just sort of looks incredible in every way. “You always look so good,” Raven says, and it comes out like an accusation.

Luna grins. “Thank you. So do you.”

“Yeah but not like you,” Raven argues, because it is suddenly really important that Luna _gets_ this. She needs her to know that she’s gorgeous, and amazingly talented, and Raven likes her so much. “You don’t even have to _try_.”

Luna’s still smiling, bright and glowing like she’s never been before. “I try really hard actually,” she admits. “I’m glad you noticed.”

Raven blinks, because the Jaeger shots may have slowed her brain a little, but she’s still quicker than the average person. “I always notice.”

Luna looks away, at the party around them, and when her eyes land back on Raven, they shine clear. “Do you want to get out of here?”

Raven takes one last shot, for good luck, or something like it. “Sure.”

The air isn’t cold at all; it’s June on the west coast. But the fresh air helps steady Raven’s thoughts, still wet with tequila, and walking on the sand helps too, since it requires a lot more coordination than walking on pavement. They wander aimlessly in the quiet for a few minutes, before she thinks to ask where they’re going.

“I live ten minutes away,” Luna says, and Raven gasps at her.

“Why don’t you ever hang out with us?”

“I’ve never been invited.”

“That doesn’t stop Riley,” Raven points out. “Or Murphy. Or, like, half the people who turn up. Monty and Jasper never care who’s at their place.”

Luna looks at her from the corner of her eye, and then out towards the ocean. “Truthfully, I have no interest in spending time with Monty and Jasper outside of work.”

Raven stares, breath hanging heavy in her chest, like it’s scared to leave. “Then why’d you come?”

Now Luna faces her. “Because you asked me to.”

“Oh,” Raven says. And then before she can think about it, she blurts “But you weren’t even jealous.”

Luna looks confused. “What?”

“When Caity and I were joking around,” she explains, and if she wasn’t still tipsy, she might feel embarrassed.

But maybe not. Raven can feel confident doing the weirdest things. She’s played football in lingerie before, and that takes some serious self-assurance.

It’s sometime past midnight and dark, but there’s enough light from the street lamps that Raven can see Luna’s eyes go dark. She takes a step forward, until Raven can feel the warmth from her skin. “You think I wasn’t jealous?”

Raven has always made the first move, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you want something. You either earn it or you take it, and Raven has always done a little of both. She was the one to kiss Finn, and then later she was the one to break up with him. She was the one to initiate the singular hookup with Bellamy, and the one to initiate the shitshow with Wick, and she was the one to pull back from both of them. She would have been the one to ask out Gina, if she hadn’t been pining for Bellamy instead.

And now here she is, with Luna just half an inch away from her, and it would be so fucking easy to just lean in and _take_.

But she hesitates, because Luna isn’t like anyone else she’s ever known, and Raven doesn’t want a one night stand on the beach.

“You didn’t even drink anything,” Raven realizes, breath hitching when Luna reaches out and lays a hand against Raven’s neck, loose enough for her to pull away if she wants to. Giving her an out.

“I didn’t want to lose control, and do something I’d regret,” Luna says, and Raven thinks _fuck it_.

“Like--kiss me?”

There’s the brief flash of something like lightning in Luna’s eyes, and then she’s kissing her, something in between harsh and soft, like they’re meeting in the middle. She tastes like listerine and Raven smiles, imagining her worrying about her breath, planning this.

They pull apart, just an inch, and Luna searches Raven’s face, looking for something like reassurance. “How drunk are you?”

Raven grins. “Not drunk enough to let you get out of this.” She pauses. “But I’m not sure about sex on the beach. I have,” she gestures to the brace, trying not to be ashamed of it. _There’s nothing to be ashamed_ of. But it’s never that easy.

Luna looks amused, at least, and takes Raven’s hand, leading her along. “Beach sex is overrated,” she makes a face. “Sand gets in intimate places.”

Raven barks out a laugh, and manages not to feel nervous until suddenly they’re at Luna’s little bungalow, somehow everything that she’d imagine Luna’s home to be, though she’s never given it much thought.

Luna releases her hand to unlock the door, and when she turns back, she finds Raven wringing her fingers in the cotton of her shirt, tied in a knot above her belly button. Luna reaches for her hands, stilling them and stroking her thumbs over the knuckles. Tender.

“Why do you do that?” she asks, no judgment, just curious. She wants to know Raven--and Raven wants to be known.

“My hands like to keep busy.”

The look that Luna gives her makes Raven want to squirm, want to knot her hands up in her hair, want to kiss her and kiss her and never stop.

“I can help with that.”

 

When Raven was twelve years old, she looked at the boy who had always been her best friend, who was the most important person in her world, and she thought _this is what love feels like_.

Five years later, she laid in her bed after he’d broken her heart into a million pieces, so many that she thought she’d never be able to put it back together, and she figured she must have been wrong. Love should never hurt like that.

Now Raven wakes up to Luna tracing a hand whisper-soft down her side, and she doesn’t think she’s in love with her, but she thinks she could be, soon. She rolls over, and her breath must be stale from sleep and alcohol, but Luna kisses her back like she’s happy to do it.

Luna pulls back, hair thoroughly ruined from sleep and Raven’s hands the night before, messy curls curtaining Raven’s face while she looks down at her.

“Careful,” Raven teases, thumbing at a bruise she must have left on Luna’s collar bone. “I might get used to this.”

Luna smiles brighter than the fucking sun, and Raven could get used to that too. “That’s the plan.”

Raven thinks _this might be what satisfaction feels like_ , and leans up to kiss her again.


End file.
